


Giving Up

by von_gelmini, witchway



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, College Student Peter Parker, Internal Monologue, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/von_gelmini/pseuds/von_gelmini, https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchway/pseuds/witchway
Summary: Peter was just a dorky kid in a souped-up leotard (provided by said genius) with a giant crush (that everyone knew about) and they were never, ever, ever going to be together.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Kudos: 35





	Giving Up

**Author's Note:**

> [Witchway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchway/pseuds/witchway) ([thestarkerisobvious](https://thestarkerisobvious.tumblr.com/)) wrote the first part of the story. I wrote the second part with her permission.
> 
> * * *

* * *

Peter was giving up.

There was no “darkest before the dawn” or “light at the end of the tunnel” or “one foot in front of the otherbullshit” or any such nonsense. He was done.

Tony Stark was a worldly, experienced, amazing (and genius) superhero who had been, before the superhero days, a legendary playboy. And Peter? Peter was just a dorky kid in a souped-up leotard (provided by said genius) with a giant crush (that _everyone_ knew about) and they were never, ever, _ever_ going to be together. 

There was no reason to deny it anymore.

Peter was done.

* * *

* * *

There comes a point in any bout of nightly drinking yourself into a stupor when you’re not quite there yet, but neither are you sober enough to be that functional alcoholic you are known so well as. 

_**“You don’t deserve him.”** _

Well no shit, conscience. Of course I don’t deserve him. I’m me and he’s… perfect. To be honest, I don’t deserve anybody. Nobody should have to put up with _me_. Much less this beautiful, angelic kid. Every time it goes longer than a couple of nights with me, it’s a spectacular mess. That’s why I tried to keep it to one-night-stands. Easier for me, sure. But mostly, easier for them. Look what I did when I _tried_ to do a relationship? I don’t deserve him? No shit Sherlock.

_**“He deserves better than you.”** _

See the fucking above. And add in a healthy dose of repeat on the ‘he’s perfect’ part. At the very least, he deserves someone who’s at the same stage of life as him. A fellow college student with no demands on his time beyond studying and frat parties or whatever. Not some burnt out wreck of a man who has nothing _but_ demands on his time. Getting me is no deal for anyone, much less Peter. He deserves _so much_ better than me.

_**“Nobody comes out of loving you unscathed.”** _

Ouch. Pulling the big guns out early, eh conscience? I’m a fucking plague. You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t _tried_ to hide that, to work around that, to change that? You can change your hairstyle, you can’t change who you _are_. You can’t change when something is deeply, drastically, _intrinsically_ wrong with you. That shit stays. That shit stains everyone it touches. 

They think they know what I’m like. _Why_ I’m like this. They see me and every damn one of them suddenly gets a degree in psychoanalysis. They think they’ll be the one to fix me. That all it will take is them loving me enough and, like fairy tale magic, I’ll be healed. I don’t know how it works for people who are just _damaged_. Maybe that works for them. But that doesn’t work when someone’s just _wrong_. It doesn’t work for me. Unfortunately a cure doesn’t exist for the _me_ disease.

_**“You want him.”** _

No. I _want_ dinner at Marea. Peter is so much more than a want. I don’t have a word for it. ‘Need’ doesn’t even come close, much less ‘want’. Why the hell do you think I should keep far away from him. Even if points one, two, and three weren’t valid, which they very much are, nobody should have to deal with what I’m like when I’m in love with them. Trust me, I know what I’m like. I’m me, with the me dialed up, like Peter says about his senses, to eleven.

**_“You love him. You just said so. You’ll work things out.”_ **

Darling, lovely drunken conscience, you’ve _got_ to know me better than that. We are far too old and too cynical to start believing in fairy tales. You’re supposed to be the voice of reason. Be fucking reasonable.

_**“He wants you.”** _

He _thinks_ he knows what he wants. He has no idea what he wants. He’s a _kid_. No kid his age knows what they want. When I was in my twenties, I wanted to fuck anything blonde with a big rack, get laid by anything with a big dick, fuck any guy with a bubble butt, and let Obie run the company. We’re all idiots in our twenties. Without exception. Even geniuses turn into idiots when that number clicks over to that decade. He has absolutely no idea what he wants.

_**“He knows you and he wants you.”** _

He just _thinks_ he knows me. He’s built a fantasy version of Tony Stark in his head. They all do. All of them. Even Pepper. It took us being together for years for that to go away. And we never worked as a marriage, no matter what it looked like. I’m sure Peter’s already picking out his metaphorical wedding dress.

_**“He knows you.”** _

Nobody knows me!

_**“He’s different.”** _

Yeah! He’s _Peter_. There aren’t a lot of good things in this piece of shit world and he is one of them, okay?

_**“You’ve had good relationships with men before.”** _

I have _never_ had a relationship with a man. They’ve had relationships with me. I had a relationship with their ass. 

_**“You’re more than twice his age.”** _

There you go, conscience. Back on track. I’m a fucking pervert for wanting a beautiful kid like that. He’s barely legal. So yeah, barely legal might’ve been my m.o. for one-night-stands, but Peter would not be that to me. Not ever. Twice his age? I’m closer to _three times_ his age than simply twice. He is not ready for this life, even if it wasn’t with me. The life of anyone my age is too much for a kid to handle. I’m not saying we don’t have a lot in common…

**_“That’s the difference between him and everyone else.”_ **

Wait. I thought you’d gone back to being reasonable. Okay. Sure. He gets me on levels that Pepper couldn’t, wouldn’t, and didn’t want to. There’s… fuck… it’s like looking in a time travel mirror, okay? Maybe it’s that ‘textbook narcissism’ Natasha read in me. I love him because I love myself too much. 

**_“You fooled the great Russian spy, just like you fool everyone else. You hate yourself and you know it.”_ **

Rude! But true. What’s not to hate? I fooled her? I’ve fooled the whole fucking world! I spent my entire life pulling the wool over their eyes. Like I said, even Pepper. Christ, at the end of it all… She was so understanding. I wanted to pull my hair out. She should’ve been pissed as hell! Instead we’re still friends. Better friends than we were before. How could she not see it? There has never been a person I haven’t fooled. Don’t you dare say it!

_**“He always knew what you were.”** _

You fucking suck, conscience. One more crack like that out of you and I’ll finish drinking you out of existence.

Which is precisely what Tony did. 

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on starkerstories on November 23, 2019. I forgot to post it here on AO3. And I always like to post to both places. So I finally caught up to it.  
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> Witchway's Starker blog on tumblr is [thestarkerisobvious](https://thestarkerisobvious.tumblr.com/).  
> Von's Starker blog on tumblr is [starker-stories](https://starker-stories.tumblr.com/).  
> Come on by and visit us.


End file.
